Miracle
by endocranium
Summary: He didn't know who she was, but for that one brief moment there was more to life then the melting crystals in the spoon held before him. A story about when Sophie runs into the junkie in the Bois du Boulogne - just a bit of elaboration.


Author's Note: This is based off the movie version of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. It's the moment when Robert and Sophie are fleeing the police and run into the Bois du Boulogne and she gets a junkie to move by buying his stuff. It's over very fast, but there's a poignant sort of moment when their eyes meet, and when we later find out that she is Jesus' descendent, it seems sort of like she did a little something special there. Either way, it's an interesting moment and no one ever confirmed if she just bought the stuff or if she really helped the junkie. This is my interpretation, with no infringement intended towards either the Da Vinci Code movie or book. Thanks for reading! Constructive criticism is welcome, but nothing mean, please.

* * *

It had been days since his last meal. Days that stretched by, indecipherable stretches of blackness, emptiness and then bright colors and beautiful music. Oddly, when he thought back to the last food that had passed through his mouth, a stale ham sandwich scavenged from a bin, he realized he could barely recall the taste. It didn't matter - none of it mattered. Everything was gone.

Except _this_ moment. Here, on an old picnic table, covered with graffiti and stains, in the Bois du Boulogne. That was all that existed.

Particularly the cheap spoon held in shaking hands over a pitiful flame, the only bright spot in that long stretch of emptiness. Truly, the only real life in that clearing.

That must have been where the money went, then. For the crystals slowly dissolving in the old, rusty spoon. But it wasn't a sacrifice – it never was. Anything could be given for just one more moment of pure bliss. Money, loyalty, anything. And it was worth it.

So intent was he on the flickering flame and shaking spoon that he failed to hear her footsteps until she was a few feet away and saying, "Police."

A shiver ran down his spine – an addict's fear not of jail, but losing it. That light, that warmth – that _high_. The fear was enough to make him angry, more emotion then he'd felt in days, that this slip of a girl would interfere here, in a world where it was understood that you should leave the fuck alone. Everyone knew - you isolated the deviants in one park and they wouldn't infect the others. They were left to themselves to rot their minds, bodies, and souls.

"What do you want?" he snapped.

She slowly closed her ID and walked forward, her face still in the shadows as she pulled out a bill and threw it on the table. His eyes widened as he registered the numbers on it - more money than he'd seen in a long time. Enough to hold him through another few weeks. Enough for a bit more...

"Fifty Euros for all your stuff."

He clutched the spoon reflexively.

"Go and get something to eat."

Her face was finally visible; she was young, naïve, and clearly upset. No one who understood the ways of the Bois du Boulogne would offer to buy equipment. To the addicts here, some things were more important than money. For others, money was more important than life itself, acquired by any means necessary. He felt a derisive laugh emerging, and looked into her eyes as she shifted on her feet.

In that moment – that one, perfect moment – he saw something more. More than money, more than shadowy parks at night, and more than precious liquid on a rusty old spoon. Her face was tired and pale, and she was no great beauty, but looking into her eyes he saw life. He saw a hope for something better, and remembered what he had not thought of for years: that he had a mother, a father, a vision of a woman holding a child and begging him to stop giving in, begging him not to leave.

A breath came out, and he set down the spoon with a clank, hardly knowing what he was doing but somehow aware that he no longer needed it. This was not his life – there was more, there just had to be. He just had to gather the strength to find it.

He slowly stood, joints stretching, with a slight smile on his face. "Okay."

And as he walked away, he realized that this was a moment he would always remember. No chemicals or drugs could take this away from him; this was _his_ life and he would no longer live it in the darkness.

Who _was_ that woman? He would never know the answer to that question, but somehow he felt that he had heard of her before - long ago, like some long forgotten dream. Maybe she was someone he had known. Maybe he had seen her face in the park before.

Maybe she was just a miracle.


End file.
